You are here

Trial severed for 2 charged in Dewey toddler’s death

A Dewey man and his mother will face separate trials in the death of a 15-month-old girl in 2011, court documents reveal.

Marcus T. Mitchell and his mother, Juanchellee L. Fitch, were both scheduled to go to trial Jan. 28, but the cases were severed Tuesday, leaving Mitchell’s trial on Jan. 28 and moving Fitch’s trial to Feb. 11.

The two are charged in connection with the death of Emma Beth Warmberodt, who authorities say died from blunt chest trauma on Feb. 24, 2011.

Warmberodt’s mother, Ashley Ann Mitchell, waived her right to trial earlier this month and is expected to enter a plea before District Judge Curtis DeLapp on Jan. 25.

Marcus Mitchell, Warmberodt’s stepfather, faces charges of first-degree murder and three counts of child neglect in the case, while Fitch is charged with accessory after the fact, child neglect and enabling child abuse, according to On Demand Court Records online reports. Ashley Mitchell is charged with enabling child abuse by injury and two counts of child neglect, according to ODCR. In addition, Ashley Mitchell and Marcus Mitchell are charged with three counts each of possession of a controlled dangerous substance and one count each of unlawful possession of drug paraphernalia.

Authorities say Warmberodt had been dead for some time when police were called to the family’s residence, located in the 300 block of Cherokee in Dewey, in reference to an unresponsive child.

Marcus Mitchell reportedly told police that the child began choking on cereal and that he struck the child’s back. Police say he admitted to seeing blood on the child’s face and said that he “cleaned the face of the child and place(d) the child back into a playpen, covered the child with a blanket and left the child and went to work,” court documents show.

When interviewed by police, Fitch reportedly said she was “at times the caregiver for the child” and that on Feb. 24 around 12:30 p.m. she had been changing the child’s diaper and the child “looked up at her and smiled.” She later told investigators that “she had in fact lied” and that she had only looked into the child’s bedroom and saw her foot, police reports indicate. She said she saw bruises on the child and “suspected that (the child) was a possible victim of physical child abuse.”

Fitch reportedly admitted to police that she asked at least one witness to “delete text messages regarding the incident because the police wanted them.”

Police say the residence she lived in with the child was a “filthy and inappropriate living environment for a child.”

During a preliminary hearing in the case, Dewey Police Department investigator Sgt. Tim Stringer told prosecutors that when he arrived on the scene he could see that CPR was being performed on the child and that he could see that the child had a “very darkly bruised right eye and a fading bruise on the center of the forehead.”

He said that shortly thereafter he was told that “rigor mortis” had set in so he immediately began a “homicide investigation.”

He said that when interviewed, Marcus Mitchell gave “numerous” accounts of the incident and denied sending a text message saying that the child had choked.

When asked, Stringer told prosecutors that he thought that the injuries that caused the bruising to the child happened at different times.

“The bruise to her forehead was older than the bruise to her eye,” he said.

He said that when confronted with the evidence of injury to the child, Mitchell “indicated that (Warmberodt was) not a very skilled walker and hits herself with her toys.”

Additionally, Stringer noted that Marcus Mitchell said he and Ashley Mitchell had taken lortab in the days prior to the incident and admitted that he struck the child on the back when he said she was choking.

“He told me he was more worried about his cell phone than Emma,” Stringer recalled.

When discussion turned to the interviews with Fitch, Stringer said Fitch stated that she saw a handprint on the victim that was “too small” for Marcus Mitchell to have made. Stringer said that Fitch’s accounting of events, especially her assertion that she saw the child alive at 12:30 p.m. that day, had delayed the investigation.

“The timeline didn’t fit,” he said.

Stringer said that when discussing the incident, Ashley Mitchell seemed “very cold” and had “no visible response.” He said Williamson told him that she knew about the abuse but did not report it because she was scared.

“She said she was afraid of both of them,” Stringer said, prompting a visible reaction from Mitchell and Fitch in the courtroom.

Under cross examination, Stringer was asked how he thought the child had died, to which he replied “when he (Mitchell) struck the child” when the child was choking.

Ashley and Marcus Mitchell remained in the Washington County Jail on $500,000 bonds each, while Fitch remained jailed on $250,000 bond.